Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The DRM free movement for eBooks expands, Digitopoly: So it started with JK Rowling who went platform independent and effectively DRM free on the Harry Potter series. This meant that for those books purchasers would not be locked into any one platform (e.g., Kindle) and that also meant that no platform could use lock-in to build up market power. Interestingly, you can’t buy those books from Apple’s iBookstore but you can buy them direct from Pottermore and import them into iBooks... Some other publishers have offered DRM free versions but JK Rowling was the first to break through Amazon’s store to get what is effectively a non-platform specific version on the Kindle.

Today comes an announcement from TOR books (who is owned by Macmillan) that their entire line of science fiction books will be available in a DRM free version. ...

Now as Amazon sells these as does Apple, I wonder if that means TOR will be using a similar method that Pottermore uses to break through those platforms. It will be interesting to see.

This all suggests that publishers are waking up to the fact that if they have ceded power to eBook platforms it is of their own choosing by insisting on DRM. ...

The same thing happened in music. DRM was the thing that got music publishers interested in digital downloads (like iTunes) and then something we couldn’t have predicted in 2003 happened; DRM was abandoned and nobody really noticed. What is more DRM was abandoned with a coincidental 30% (!) price increase to consumers as compensation for the extra value provided by portability. My feeling (based on no real evidence) is that overall the consumers won out of that deal (they are paying a little more to save on paying lots more later). It will be interesting to see how TOR’s pricing changes as it goes DRM free.

Publishers were always aggregators to some extent. They (supposedly) found the best writing from all the manuscripts that are out there, or solicited it themselves, and then made it available for a fee (the price of the book).

As authors take things into their own hands and self-publishing in the form of eBooks proliferates, there will likely be a role for publishers to continue doing this. They won't get paid for binding books in the traditional sense, but they can still offer a platform where authors will get noticed in return for exclusivity. That is, if a site develops a reputation for aggregating the best content and has a large following, then it can use that reputation to attract the best authors to the site. It can also lock the authors up with contracts that do not allow them to publish on other sites in return for exposure (which works best with new authors). The public can go to the site, know there's a good chance of finding something interesting -- just like browsing for books now -- and then purchase an eBook (the sites could also be supported, in part or in whole, by ads).

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"The DRM Free Movement for eBooks Expands"

Joshua Gans notes a new development in the eBook wars:

The DRM free movement for eBooks expands, Digitopoly: So it started with JK Rowling who went platform independent and effectively DRM free on the Harry Potter series. This meant that for those books purchasers would not be locked into any one platform (e.g., Kindle) and that also meant that no platform could use lock-in to build up market power. Interestingly, you can’t buy those books from Apple’s iBookstore but you can buy them direct from Pottermore and import them into iBooks... Some other publishers have offered DRM free versions but JK Rowling was the first to break through Amazon’s store to get what is effectively a non-platform specific version on the Kindle.

Today comes an announcement from TOR books (who is owned by Macmillan) that their entire line of science fiction books will be available in a DRM free version. ...

Now as Amazon sells these as does Apple, I wonder if that means TOR will be using a similar method that Pottermore uses to break through those platforms. It will be interesting to see.

This all suggests that publishers are waking up to the fact that if they have ceded power to eBook platforms it is of their own choosing by insisting on DRM. ...

The same thing happened in music. DRM was the thing that got music publishers interested in digital downloads (like iTunes) and then something we couldn’t have predicted in 2003 happened; DRM was abandoned and nobody really noticed. What is more DRM was abandoned with a coincidental 30% (!) price increase to consumers as compensation for the extra value provided by portability. My feeling (based on no real evidence) is that overall the consumers won out of that deal (they are paying a little more to save on paying lots more later). It will be interesting to see how TOR’s pricing changes as it goes DRM free.

Publishers were always aggregators to some extent. They (supposedly) found the best writing from all the manuscripts that are out there, or solicited it themselves, and then made it available for a fee (the price of the book).

As authors take things into their own hands and self-publishing in the form of eBooks proliferates, there will likely be a role for publishers to continue doing this. They won't get paid for binding books in the traditional sense, but they can still offer a platform where authors will get noticed in return for exclusivity. That is, if a site develops a reputation for aggregating the best content and has a large following, then it can use that reputation to attract the best authors to the site. It can also lock the authors up with contracts that do not allow them to publish on other sites in return for exposure (which works best with new authors). The public can go to the site, know there's a good chance of finding something interesting -- just like browsing for books now -- and then purchase an eBook (the sites could also be supported, in part or in whole, by ads).